New DNC ad criticizing Green party nominee Jill Stein | Screenshot
A television ad being released Friday by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in battleground states, including Michigan, makes the case that the campaign of Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein a spoiler candidate who seeks to help Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, return to the White House.
Titled “Crucial,” the 30-second ad will run in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and on cable across the country. Featuring an image of Stein that morphs into one of Trump, the narration asks why Trump’s “close allies” are helping Stein, who is referred to as having been “key to Trump’s 2016 wins in battleground states.” It then states that Stein is not sorry she helped Trump win and that “a vote for Stein is really a vote for Trump.”
The ad then concluded with a short clip of Trump speaking at a June 2024 rally in Philadelphia.
“Jill Stein. I like her very much, you know why? She takes 100% from them,” says Trump of Democrats.
“Just like in 2016, Jill Stein can’t win the presidency, but she will help decide who does,” said DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill. “Donald Trump knows that she’s his key to the White House — that’s why he praises her spoiler candidacy and why his MAGA allies are working to prop up her campaign. The stakes of this election are too high to allow Jill Stein to spoil it. The DNC will make sure voters know that a vote for anyone other than Kamala Harris is a vote for Donald Trump.”
The DNC notes the many other linkages between Stein and Trump starting with her pivotal role in securing the electoral votes of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for the former president in 2016. Stein won 132,000 cumulative votes in the three states, while Trump’s margin of victory was just 77,000 votes in those same states.
Additionally, Stein’s campaign surrogates have said publicly that she has no path to victory and that their top priority is stopping Kamala Harris, with Michigan as the lynch pin in that strategy due to the state’s large Muslim and Arab-American populations. On Monday, the Abandon Harris campaign, a group that has actively campaigned against electing a Democratic president in November, announced it was endorsing Stein for president.
Democrats also say Stein has echoed MAGA talking points on issues like January 6th and Trump’s criminal trials, saying she thinks January 6 was “blown up for political reasons,” and admitting she is open to pardoning not only Jan. 6 protesters, but that she’d also consider pardoning Trump.
Both The Wall Street Journal and Salon have reporter on the Stein campaign’s use of a Republican consulting firm to help her get on the ballot, and that in a recent court case in Nevada, Stein was represented by Trump’s former personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who defended Trump throughout his impeachment trials.
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